


Bright Without the Sun

by Nanashi Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Friendship, Love Confessions, M/M, Reunions, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-03
Updated: 2007-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Nanashi%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only the foolish man turns away love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Without the Sun

Out of habit, Duo tries the doorknob before ringing the bell. It turns unexpectedly and he hesitates, unsure whether it's an oversight or an invitation. He's never had a problem walking in uninvited but he hasn't seen Wufei for over a year, since they both left the Preventers. It's been a long year and maybe nothing has changed, but maybe some things have; if they have, though, Duo doesn't know what they are yet. He fingers the brass knob for another moment, then releases it and pushes the doorbell instead. He takes a couple of steps back and leans himself against one of the porch's support columns as he waits, grin in place.

The knob turns and the door starts in backwards, but Duo doesn't move even when it's fully open and Wufei is standing there. "Maxwell."

"Chang."

When Wufei finally smiles, Duo lets his grin break wider.

"Have you turned into a vampire during the past year?" Wufei arches one eyebrow. "Do you require an explicit invitation to enter?"

Duo grins more. "You've gotten really good at that," he says, touching his own brow and then pointing at Wufei's.

Wufei snorts. "Thank you." He smiles serenely as his brow settles again. "You made a bet with someone about how long it would take to wind me up, didn't you?" Saccharinity colors his serenity as the smile digs in determinedly. "Was it Winner or Yuy?"

Duo laughs. "I guess I lose this one." He pushes off the column, still smiling, and goes forward. Wufei's smile is genuine again as he clasps the hand Duo offers. "It was Quatre and Tro, actually. Both of them," Duo confesses as he follows Wufei inside. "But Heero sends his greetings."

Wufei glances back over his shoulder in approval: "It's good that you and he have remained friends."

"Best friends, forever." Duo grins.

Wufei claps him on the back as they halt in the foyer. "It _is_ good to see you, Maxwell."

The corners of Duo's mouth twitch up a little more. "You too, buddy."

By the end of the short tour of the house, Duo's stomach has growled not once but twice. Wufei, turning down an offer of assistance, leaves him in the parlor with a promise to return with refreshments.

It was a long shuttle ride and Duo is tired of sitting. He lets his fingertips drag over the bindings as he walks along the wall of books. One of the hardbacks gives under the pressure as he passes over it and Duo adds enough force to push it all the way in as he goes by—then immediately steps back and takes it off the shelf: _Fire from Heaven_ , by someone named Mary Renault. Duo has never heard of the book or the author, not that he's a scholar or cultured or anything. He flips it over and reads the back: it's all about a guy who conquered most of the known world before he turned thirty, and it sounds like he was a real guy. Alexander the Great. Duo can't help snorting a little at that, but he opens the book anyhow to see just what was so great about a guy who went around killing people and cultures. The inside flap is a little more interesting: this is the story before Alexander became "great." back when he was a boy with dreams and a fucked up family, back when he met the friend who would stand by him through everything. Duo isn't sure he wants to read about humanizing or personalizing the monstrous, but there's something about the way the friend is described that appeals to him, so he turns the page to start the story.

There is, indeed, a story on the next page. But it's not the story Duo was expecting.

 _My Eternal Friend,_ [the careful handwriting reads], _Only the foolish man turns away love._ Below the inscription is a flourish of a signature, flamboyant but legible: _Treize Khushrenada_.

He reads it again. He wonders if Wufei is the "eternal friend," as ludicrous as it sounds. It's more ludicrous, though, to imagine that Wufei came by the book randomly. He wonders how often Wufei reads the book and how often he reads only the inscription. He starts to feel funny holding the book, even without reading any more, so he turns to put it back as he found it—and sees Wufei standing in the doorway, watching him. His belly clenches and he starts to apologize but he isn't sure what he's apologizing for exactly, so he decides not to say anything.

Wufei doesn't say anything, either. And he doesn't look like he needs or wants an apology because he's smiling as he comes over—but Duo can see in Wufei's eyes that the smile is for the book, not for him. Tea tray set on the table, Wufei gently takes the still-open book from Duo's hands. He touches the inscription briefly before closing the cover.

Again Duo feels the urge to apologize and this time he starts to do it—but Wufei shakes his head. "You have nothing to apologize for." His hand lingers on the book a moment longer before and Duo turns to study the sandwiches on the tray. Finger sandwiches, like the kind Quatre is always serving. It seems to be the thing for people of refinement like Quatre and Wufei and probably Treize Khushrenada; especially for Treize Khushrenada, Duo imagines.

He hears a shifting of books as Wufei slides the inscribed one back into place. He turns, ready to change the mood, a light "so what do you do for fun around here?" on the tip of his tongue. But even as his mouth is opening, Wufei speaks first:

"Do you want to ask me about it?"

Duo kind of does, but he isn't sure what it is that he wants to ask. They sit at a right angle, Duo on the sofa, Wufei in the chair, easy to look at each other, easy to look away.

The refined little sandwiches sit untouched. Even in their presence, Duo's stomach respects the silence that has fallen. He isn't sure how to break it, though it's clear that it's up to him. So he forgets about being decorous and refined and launches in, shinigami-style: "I always wondered about you and Treize." Wufei's eyes, as calm as the rest of his face, remain on him. Duo looks at the sandwiches again; there's a little too much condiment on one of them, causing the top to slide frictionlessly askew. "We all did," Duo revises, "but none of us wanted to ask. I guess we didn't have the guts to." His belly twists with longing as he continues to stare at the food, so he returns his gaze to Wufei. "We didn't want to intrude."

"It's all right," Wufei says. "I'm inviting the intrusion."

Duo has to laugh a little at that. "So, it was mutual, then? I mean," he gestures in the direction of the book and its inscription, "the feelings?"

Wufei doesn't answer right away. "It was. Complicated."

Duo isn't sure if he should ask his next question but he knows this is a rare opportunity Wufei has given him, and he knows that if he doesn't ask now he never will. He also knows, somehow, that right now it's okay to ask. So he does: "Did he—he didn't, uh, force you, did he?"

"No." Wufei is calm, clear-eyed. A smile plays with his lips as he adds, "I was the one who seduced him."

"Shut up!" Duo can't help the grin that accompanies his words. "Did you break into his quarters and arrange yourself naked on his bed or something?"

Now it's Wufei's turn to laugh. "You're not as far off as you might think you are, Maxwell. I did break in—to fight him." He tells Duo about the duel and how they locked in battle, close to each other, swords crossed between them, Wufei's hand on Treize's wrist, Treize's encircling his; not just locked but deadlocked. Until Wufei kissed him.

Duo imagines the Wufei of their youth, half a lifetime ago and it feels longer, like he's lived a whole other lifetime since they were gundam pilots. He imagines the flash of indignation that always lit Wufei's eyes getting brighter and the curve of his mouth turning into something else, no less fierce and impassioned... "So he swept you up and carried you to his bed?" Duo can't help playing the tease even after all this time.

"Not exactly." The smile is still there in Wufei, but something else is mixing in with it and Duo has to look away. As he casually selects a sandwich and slides the bread on top back where it belongs, he sees from the edge of his vision that Wufei has looked off too. "At first, he did nothing. Then he moved back and looked at me. He had let go but I had not. We held, looking at each other a moment longer; then I could not hold longer and let go as well. He caught my fingers when I did, bent his head and brought my hand to his mouth, pressing his lips to my knuckles as gentlemen do to ladies." Duo sneaks a glance as he chews and sees Wufei drifting on memory, fingers touching his own hand as lips must have once. "Then he turned my hand and kissed the palm, and that was even queerer." Wufei's thumb circles at the heart of his hand. Duo swallows but doesn't take another bite; he looks openly at Wufei now. "He took down my hair, which no one had done..."

Wufei sighs as his lashes sweep down, then up again without fully closing his eyes. "We had a romance. That's what he called it. We had something that was akin to friendship, though different from any friendship I had ever had, then or since. An understanding, he said it was. We had a romance and an understanding, but we never..."

"Fucked?" Duo supplies helpfully.

"Consummated, I was going to say." Wufei is looking at him with another of those smiles that Duo can now identify as wistful. "I am going to visit his grave tomorrow," Wufei says unexpectedly, and even more unexpectedly he adds, "You may accompany me, if you like."

"Oh, I don't want to intrude," Duo says, and with a quick grin adds, "Any further."

Wufei returns it with a genuine smile. "It would not be an intrusion."

Duo studies him in their mutual gaze. "In that case," he offers a smile, though he isn't sure what he saw and what he didn't in Wufei's eyes, "I'm in."

 

The cemetery is quiet but not silent. The world is alive around them, the breeze brushing over them, whispering occasionally at their ears, the grass and leaves of the trees swaying with it, birds and squirrels chittering in the trees.

The cemetery is not silent but Wufei is. He has been silent for an hour, not from the moment they got here but from the moment he knelt at the grave site. Duo isn't sure why Wufei brought him, if he's being punished for sticking his nose in where it didn't belong or if he's supposed to be witnessing something. He pays attention, just in case, meditating on Wufei as Wufei meditates on the headstone, his eyes closed, wisps of his ponytail pulled free when the breeze picks up, drifting about his face, clinging to his skin as his head remains bowed, his fingers resting in the lettered name on the headstone as they have been for a few minutes now.

Then Wufei drops his hand to his own side and, though nothing else has changed, Duo feels that something has been completed. Wufei looks at him for the first time since he knelt. "Thank you for coming with me, Maxwell."

Duo starts to say "thanks for inviting me" but he doesn't know if he means what those words mean; he isn't sure the words mean anything at all.

Sunlight filters through the leaves, dappling Wufei's hair, brushing across his skin; his face is draped in chiaroscuro. There's something else, something from beneath the skin, something Duo can't identify, something that makes Wufei look beautiful. Really, yeah, so beautiful... He brushes his fingers against Wufei's sun-dappled hair, drifts deeper, touches his chiaroscuro skin. Their eyes meet. Their mouths meet.

"Wait." Duo breaks the kiss when Wufei's hands move to his waistband with purpose. "Not here..."

Anything else he would have said is lost in the kiss as Wufei's mouth finds his again. "Yes," Wufei murmurs, "here."

Duo knows it is a request not a command. He knows he can say no.

But he doesn't. He lets Wufei push him back down. He turns over when Wufei's hands request it, gets up on hands and knees. He tenses for Wufei's fingers—but the fingers are slick, and Duo realizes Wufei came prepared for this. Invited him for this. Wufei enters him, begins moving inside him wordlessly; all Duo can hear is his own breathing. He holds his breath for as long as he can to listen to the ragged depths of Wufei's, then surrenders to his body's demand for respiration. Wufei reaches around beneath to take Duo in hand and Duo closes his eyes, listens to the pounding of his breath, feels the pounding of his pulse, the pounding of Wufei's cock, the rough sweet slide inside him, sweet slide of his hand around Duo's cock.

Then Wufei's other hand reaches beyond Duo's shoulder, and Duo feels his whole body jerking with each thrust as Wufei fucks him harder. He opens his eyes, and sees that Wufei is not just using the headstone for leverage: he is fingering the name on it.

Duo closes his eyes again and lets Wufei's hand and cock push him into orgasm; Wufei is equally soundless when he comes.

 

Duo knows. He knows why Wufei invited him to the cemetery. He knows, he knows, he knows. He knew when he came, he knew when Wufei did; even if he was an idiot and didn't know much longer before that, he knew by then. He knows now as he sits on the sofa in Wufei's parlor again, he knows as he watches Wufei pour the darkest ale available in known space into two pint glasses. He does, he fucking knows.

And still: "Can I ask you a question, man?"

"Of course." Wufei sits in the chair and looks at him, glass in hand but unraised to his lips.

"Were you pretending I was Treize?" Duo asks, already knowing the answer.

"I wasn't pretending anything," Wufei says as he sets down the glass, "but yes, I was thinking of him."

Duo nods.

"It's not what you think, Maxwell."

"Nah, it's okay, Chang." Duo laughs it off with a shrug, a wry grin: "Always knew you were a little in love with death."

"Yes," Wufei says soft and steady, looking at him soft and steady.

Looking at him. Looking at him.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

"Oh," Duo says. He goes all funny inside. He tries to speak but all sorts of things get in the way of the words in his throat. He swallows to clear them all away and tries again, but now the words are gone, too.

Wufei is still looking at him and even though the sunlight isn't here to adorn him, he's still beautiful. Stupidly and ridiculously beautiful. Duo doesn't know anymore. He feels like he doesn't know anything—but he does know that.

And he knows this: he wants Wufei undone. He reaches around to release the ponytail, takes it down. Yeah, he wants Wufei all undone. He always has. Maybe not always but for as long as this lifetime, this one after the other where they first met, when they were young and foolish and there was a war anyhow, and anyhow there was Treize.

He thinks about that inscription again: _Only the foolish man turns away love._

Their eyes have closed. They kiss by touch. Duo opens his mouth to breathe deeper. He inhales Wufei, open now too. Inhales and breathes into him, goes into him, his own breath all undone. Duo knows; he knows. "Give it," he murmurs against Wufei's skin, licking the wake of his whisper, offering more: "Take me," he breathes thickly, "please take me now."

And Wufei does. He takes Duo to his bedroom, takes Duo to his bed. Duo strips off quickly and lies back naked to watch Wufei undress more slowly. He watches Wufei smile, watches Wufei come to him smiling naked. He watches Wufei enter him this time; this time, Duo guides him. They fuck slow this time, facing each other, looking at each other. Wufei rocks him with the rhythm of give and take, fills him with it. He bends for a kiss, filling Duo's mouth with his tongue the way he is filling Duo with his cock, and Duo arches and opens and sucks Wufei into him more deeply. Then Wufei's tongue is at his ear, flicking against the shell, Duo's name tripping off the tip. "Will you get on top?" Wufei whispers.

He lies on his back and Duo straddles his body, reaches back to guide Wufei in again, pushes himself down on Wufei's cock. His thighs tense as he rocks himself full, then angles to allow a longer stroke out, a deeper slide in. "Yes," Wufei murmurs, stroking his hands down Duo's thighs, "oh, like that..." Wufei reaches for Duo's cock and Duo's eyes close with the glorious strokes, but he opens them again to watch Wufei's face, framed by the fan and curves of his undone hair, as Wufei comes beneath and inside him.

When he feels Wufei softening, Duo starts to raise himself off—but Wufei's hands push down on his hips. "I want you to come with me inside you." He brings one hand to Duo's cock again, the other hand stroking lightly up his own torso, his eyes fixed on Duo's and Duo doesn't know if he could look away but he doesn't try to, doesn't want to. He just wants this, Wufei inside him, around him, himself taken, Wufei all undone. He wants this, he knows, oh he _knows_ —and knowing, he spills out across Wufei's skin, bright without the sun.

Duo rolls off onto his back and Wufei props up on his side, hand resting on Duo's belly. "I think I'm gonna stay a few more days," Duo says, drowsing, "if that's okay with you."

Wufei's fingers move, dipping into Duo's belly button, a strange fullness but not unpleasant. "Please."

Duo lets his fingers rest over Wufei's. "How long?"

"As long as you like."

"No, I mean," Duo shifts onto his side to face Wufei again, "how long? How long have you..."

Wufei smiles again, in understanding this time. "When I was with Khushrenada, he would often speak of Merquise. And I, for some reason, would often speak of you. Of how aggravating you could be, how troublesome."

"Of what a fool I was?" Duo laughs.

Wufei doesn't laugh, but he is still smiling. "Khushrenada did not believe you were a fool," he says.

The inscription returns once more to Duo's mind. "I'm not."

Wufei looks at Duo for another heartbeat. They look at each other and Wufei smiles: "I know. And neither am I."

That, Duo knew; with a smile, he knows.


End file.
